Das Haus der Träumer; Indische Flamme; Kronprinz Rudolf. Das Leben eines merkwürdigen Mannes. These are but a few of the works from the prolific pen of Viennese writer Erwin Weill, an oeuvre whose creation was abruptly cut short by the National Socialist regime and whose creator lost his life at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945.

This volume, edited by mdw scholars Rainer Prokop and Rosa Reitsamer, presents an excellent collection of articles that critically examine how neoliberalism has shaped recent changes in music education policies and programmes.

Eine Vielzahl von Künstler_innen, Musiker_innen und Komponist_innen haben den Plattenspieler in den letzten Jahrzehnten intensiv genutzt, bearbeitet und erweitert. Durch virtuos angewandte Techniken, wie u. a. Scratching und Beat-Matching, wurde der Plattenspieler zum Instrument und der bzw. die DJ zum/zur Musiker_in.

It all began a few years ago with a clarinet concerto by the American composer Aaron Copland (1900–1990). My eye was caught by the words at the very top of the page: “For Benny Goodman”. Was Copland friends with the swing icon? Did they work together? Or did the composer simply admire Goodman (1909–1986) as a musician?

Since 2023, the mdw has been honouring outstanding papers of these types that pertain to music and the performing arts at large with the “mdw young research award (myra)”. Alongside providing some public recognition for these frequently ambitious papers, the point is to strengthen the connections between our university and schools as well as to lend visibility to disciplines and questions concerning music and other performing arts that interest young people and are also focuses of work at the mdw.

The fact that Helmut Lachenmann now occupies an outstanding position in the contemporary music scene is owed not just to his compositions but also to the efficacy of his writings, which have stimulated the production of a considerable number of texts referring thereto.

In the new research column “Early Stage Researchers”, up-and-coming academics at the mdw offer glimpses into their intriguing and wide-ranging research activities.

How do art and sound enter into dialogue with each other in the public realm? As part of KlangBildKlang, the three-day spring school “Sonic Dialogues: Intersections of Art and Sound in Public Spaces” offered a forum for early-stage researchers to explore precisely this question.

Ever since its establishment in 2021, mdwPress—our university’s own open-access academic publisher—has been working to make research at the mdw both more visible and openly accessible. An advisory board comprised of outstanding researchers and scholars from within and outside the mdw both guarantees academic independence and assures publication quality.

The infrastructure research project Applied/Experimental Sound Research Laboratory (ÆSR Lab) (2023–2026) is a collaborative effort of the University of Applied Arts, the mdw (Artistic Research Center and Department of Composition Studies and Music Production), and the Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. This project embodies an initiative to develop a mobile and modular sound research lab.